Lighting plays a significant role in retail environments as it evokes atmosphere and influences shopping behaviors by changing mood, perceptions, attention, emotions, and cognition. Despite the significance and benefits of optimal lighting in retail stores, however, little is known about specific lighting designs that influence shoppers’ in-store behaviors. This study investigates whether the effectiveness of lighting type (holistic vs. focused) is contingent on the dominant processing mode of shoppers at a given moment. The holistic or focused lighting shapes visual scope of shoppers to focus on gestalts or details in a store. Using a global versus local processing mode, which is accessible from contextual factors and is shaped by cultures, a series of experiments was conducted to test the interactive effects of lighting type and processing mode on shoppers’ approach intentions toward a store and the underlying mechanisms that influence these intentions.